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Workers march to put pressure on Correa’s government to ensure labor rights are protected in the face of neoliberal austerity measures. (WNV/Elizabeth Farinango)

“Out Correa, out!” was the resounding chant of indignation that flared up the streets across Ecuador on March 17 to demand an end to what many have come to see as a deceptive authoritarian government personified by President Rafael Correa.

The protest, called for by the Workers Unitary Front and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or CONAIE, united feminists, students, workers, environmentalists and indigenous groups in the first nationwide coordinated demonstration against Correa since last summer.

But unlike last year, the crowds were smaller and the protest short and peaceful. It had failed to capture the kind of momentum from last June when the upper echelons of Ecuadorian society galvanized the streets to protest against a tax inheritance law that threatened to redistribute their wealth. The reform was a strategic opportunity for the wealthy to tap into the pent up anger and frustration of the people at large, who have been hit hardest by Ecuador’s current economic crisis.

Following a summer of protest, the tax reform was halted and Correa was forced to announce he wouldn’t run in the 2017 general election, one of the main demands from the coalition formed between the business class, workers and indigenous groups.

A much more tame protest last week was proof Ecuador’s rich and powerful had no interest in showing up for the popular classes when it’s not to their benefit.

After all, labor unions and indigenous groups coordinated the national march to push back against a set of neoliberal reforms that in fact benefit the country’s elites.

One major reform at the heart of protest is flexibility of labor, a newly passed law set to empower employers to tailor contracts according to their needs, including reducing and increasing working hours and pay as they see fit.

Marching through Quito’s colonial city center with a cohort of his union that energized the crowds with age-old chants like “Hasta la victoria siempre,” Luis Mera, a union worker, said that the new labor reforms will embolden businesses to do as they please and make it harder for workers like himself, who are paid minimum wage, to subsist.

“We cannot deny that there have been improvements under the government, but now it’s abusing power,” Mera said. “This [economic crisis] is not affecting the upper classes but the lower ones; those who are paying for all this are us, the workers. What we want to tell [the government] here is that those that should pay for the crisis are the multinationals, those with better positions [in society].”

For the union worker, the marches and protests are an important way to put pressure on the government to listen to the people and defend their hard-earned rights, but not necessarily to get rid of President Correa himself.

Divisions over Correa’s ouster shouldn’t be too surprising since the president largely earned his political popularity, which stands at 58 percent according to the latest opinion polls, through expansive social programs. Since Correa took power in 2007, he raised the minimum wage from $170 to $240 a month, created cash bonus transfers for those living in extreme poverty, and opened up subsidies for electricity, gasoline and natural gas. Thanks in large part to these social benefits and the oil boom, the poverty rate in the country dropped from 38 percent in 2006 to 25 percent in 2014.

These are major accomplishments for the country’s social movements who put the left-wing academic-turned-politician in power. But according to critics these economic gains were strictly dependent on the country’s oil boom and forced people to trade off their civil and political freedoms.

Correa’s lavish social expenditure, which increased to 9.4 percent of GDP in 2014 from 5.3 percent in 2006, was directly fueled by pumping oil and extracting minerals from one of the world’s most bio-diverse regions and selling them on the global market to the highest bidder.

A broad coalition marched against President Rafael Correa in Quito’s colonial city center on March 17. (WNV/Elizabeth Farinango)

With the huge drop in oil prices since late 2014, which accounts for 53 percent of the country’s exports, Ecuador has now entered into an economic crisis that threatens these very social programs. The political turmoil and the protests on the streets then are only the beginning of boiling discontent among the people.

Labor reforms, the Ecuador-EU free trade agreement, and the recently passed Water and Land Law — which indigenous groups say denies access to communal water and violates the rights of small farmers to the benefit of agribusiness — are some of the ways Correa is embracing neoliberalism to handle the crisis.

Social movements — including indigenous, environmental, workers, student and feminist groups — have been taking to the streets to push back against this neoliberal tide, but their power has been severely curtailed under Correa.

In the name of “development” and nation-state building, differences across race, ethnicity and gender were erased and, as such, the spheres of political influence and autonomy that feminists, indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorians had won over the years before Correa were eradicated.

The National Council of Women, the Development Council of Nations and Peoples of Ecuador and the Council for Afro-Ecuadorian Development — considered major gains for social movements at the time — were all abolished under Correa to allegedly promote national interests, rather than those of specific groups.

This makes Rafael Correa distinct from his fellow Bolivarian leaders Evo Morales in Bolivia and the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, according to Ecuadorian academic and critic Carlos de la Torre.

“Unlike the Morales government that is based on a network of social organizations,” de la Torre writes, “the Correa regime has followed the pattern of populist mobilization from a position of power and has sought to co-opt and deradicalize social movements.” And unlike Venezuela, which “has experimented with a number of institutions of participatory democracy,” the Correa government has not created a single space for direct democracy, he added.

It’s through this logic of state expansion, mass control and the erasure of difference that one can understand the systemic assault taking place, most harshly, on indigenous communities and their lands.

“These guys with a political agenda, they are not thinking about development or about fighting against poverty,” Ecuador’s secretary of hydrocarbons, Andrés Donoso Fabara, told the Guardian in 2013, when indigenous leaders protested the government’s decision to sell one-third of the Amazon rainforest to Chinese oil and mining companies. “We are entitled by law, if we wanted, to go in by force and do some activities even if they are against them. But that’s not our policy.”

Donoso’s words reveal much about the disregard and utter contempt Correa’s “citizen revolution” has for those who do not kneel down to its state capitalist model, which is increasingly stripping people of their autonomy in the name of development and national unity.

In 2014, José Isidro Tendetza Antún, a leader of the Shuar people in the Amazon province of Zamora Chinchipe, became one of the numerous activists that have been either forcibly disappeared or outright assassinated for standing up against the Correista logic of “fighting poverty.” Tendetza was a prominent activist against the Mirador mine, an opencast pit for gold and copper operated by Chinese firms that would destroy 450,000 acres of forest.

“We now have over 700 people that are being politically persecuted, prosecuted, incarcerated, beaten — including mothers and children,” CONAIE’s president Jorge Herrera said. “This is a repressive, prepotent government with whom it has been impossible to reach consensus. This is a serious problem, not only for the indigenous people.”

In response to the intense criminalization of dissent, in which Correa uses the law as a weapon of war, CONAIE recently initiated an online campaign called #ResistirEsMiDerecho, or “to resist is my right.”

The campaign sheds light on the ongoing state repression against people for protesting or resisting the government, which led to well over a 100 people being incarcerated during last summer’s demonstrations alone.

While the power that social movements once had before Correa might have indeed diminished, and state repression is on the rise, community leaders and social activists appear confident that they can reclaim their power.

“Unlike other Latin American countries, social movements in Ecuador have always been calling and organizing for change,” said Carlos, a protester on March 17. “It’s not the right as you see in other Latin American countries, it’s organized social movements that generate mobilization. This is why it will be very hard for the right to take advantage of this situation. We know why we are fighting, where we are going, and we have no electoral expectations. This is a social, popular struggle for a change in the system.”

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Bryan Miranda is a freelance journalist from Ecuador and the Netherlands. They report from the two countries on people power, political corruption and the environment. When active on social media, follow them @BPMiranda.

25 comments

For decades the people of Ecuador have suffered under the bankers,
corrupt politicians, etc.

I have many friends from Ecuador and they only speak of their president
with deep love and admiration. Since Correa became president, they
tell me the whole complexion of Ecuador has changed. New roads,
new schools. computer for kids in the amazon, jobs, for the first time
money going to the elderly and women – they truly love him and
I am almost brought to tears when a citizen speaks so beautifully about
“their” president, as though he is their son, their grandson, their father …
so when I hear bad things about Correa, I turn my ear because I know
it cannot be true when I have heard firsthand from Ecuadoreans themselves.
I only wish I could have a president in the US that I could so love and
talk so highly of.

Get a grip Nancy, until you have LIVED there, all you can do is respond to here say. I have been living there for the past two years and is “IS NOT” the rosy picture these people are portraying. That is for good reason… Anyone who openly speaks out against Correa suffers the penalty.
No, don’t believe me.. Ask any of the radio or news people who has been sued, fired, tortured and dropped off the face of the earth in recent years! He has nationalized radio and tv and plans to control the internet as well. He gives the poor, “Just” enough to think they are doing better, then pads his off shore accounts. Now that the oil is not flowing “ALL” the public projects have stopped.. Next time consider your sources and go visit the “Real” world. That is the biggest trouble with Americans, they judge and talk of other countries as if they know. Most of these self proclaimed, armchair, experts have not even been out of their own state, much less the country.

Not so bob
president Correa is popular and those who live here love him…. with the exception of the imperialists
His vigor and pro Ecuador stance has been an irritant to the multi corporations who want to continue to plunder and spread propaganda
The oil price rigging ,designed to bring many countries to their knees has certainly impacted in Ecuador but President Correa is young and intelligent and an economist ,sees through the manipulations of the one world order

Bob,
You have been there 2 yrs so you have been enjoying all of improvements to the infrastructure of the country among other things. If you were not living in Ecuador 10 years ago or more you have no idea what you are talking about. Obviously you may be socializing with the old “elites” that can not find the way to control things for their benefit. Also the government is not controlling radio, tv, newspapers ect., you are using the same opposition rhetoric to misinform people. The government demands respect for others and will not tolerate the media making up false or exaggerated stories about anything or anyone. Please Bob, if you are not Ecuadorian and do not know the political history of Ecuador, you should refrain from making ignorant political comments.

Bob, you are a plain idiot ! Name ONE reporter thats in jail for speaking out against Correa, ONE Bob mention just one !!! Reporters aren’t allowed anymore to speak whatever the crap they want, they are finally accountable for what they write or say. That’s how it is in the States, isn’t ? Remember that reporter that said that Obama “was kind of a D_ _ K” after a State of the union….. where is she now ? She was fired on the spot. The problem is that they need to comply with the law now…… not used to it ha ! How about paying taxes Bob ? Do you HAVE to pay taxes now ? You’ve been here for 2 years ? Try 20 years Bob. We know how it use to be and how it is now under this president.

I HAVE LIVED THERE for a full year and ALL you say Nancy is very true.
Country has suffered economically recently after oil prices went down drastically, but Correa is an honest man who loves his country and has done
all that you mention and which I SAW. I am no leftist and see what is.
THE RICH hate him b/c he makes them Pay Taxes! Which they didn’t have to do before with right wing govmts. – To those of YOU that want him out I say: good luck. I find it hard for Ecuador (or any country) to get another president like Correa, a Master’s Economist who studied in the US and Belgium (wife is Belgian) and speaks French and English. A decent man
like Uribe in Colombia, or Bachelet in Chile.

You are completely right! For the last 9 years Ecuador (under Correa’s rule) has been progressing in all aspects at the rate never seen before. The majority of ecuadorean support this president and we wish he would run for another period . (He introduced a provisional anmendment to the constitution that prevented him to do so) . This article is just written by someone (not important) who focussed on the interest of a minority, who used to milk the resources of the nation, as it belonged just to them . This same minority thought it was their right to take all the wealth of the nation, evade taxes, control (and many cases owe mass media), have justice and other (government) institutions serve their purposes. With Correa all of that started to change. They know in 2017’s general election their candidates are going to lose again (even though Correa won’t be running) so this is just a desperate attempt to change that trend. I was born and raised in Ecuador, I go back every summer . I see with my own eyes all the positive changes (things I never thought possible before). Bottom line is, what is bothering a few people is they can’t evade taxes easily, and is harder for them to keep these ‘privileges” for themselves, their children, and the children of their children. Coming from a working poor family, now I see hope of a better future for the majority (excluded before) since they have access to education, health, and infrastructure in general.

Looks so clear that the media would never ever publish something good about my countryEcuador and is so busy trying to trash any country for political reasons, I live in USA for 22 years and come back twice a year and most of the changes I see and feel are positive, is easy for some one to write an article like this one from abroad siting in an office without doing the real work of journalist just looking for one side of the story, the way I see is that this journalist that writes this article would never go and ask opinions or questions to the poor people that have benefited the most from this government, people that benefit from free education, health care, the good roads, lots of people that complain about this government they forget history how it was before, children working on the streets and not at school because the parents could not afford, roads that were an embarrassment to be called roads, I would be myself embarrassed to tell someone were I am from, now I am proud to say that I am Ecuadorian and I am proud to recommend to my clients that want to visit Ecuador and feel even more proud to Hear from my clients that the loved Ecuador that they were enchanted with its people and beauty, there are thousands of US citizens living in Ecuador why ? My understanding is because they are better living there that in the US, This article make it look like in Ecuador everyone is unhappy and miserable, is not just true, is very unprofessional to write just one side of the story and make people think the worst, how about some real journalism !

ALL THAT SAYS THIS ARTICLE IS PURE LIE, THE PRESS SAYS NO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, lampoons READ AS newspaper El Universo, Expreso, or watch TV. ECUAVISA, TELEAMAZONAS, MEDIA ARE CORRUPT OF OPPOSITION, NOT do more than misinform, manipulate, lie, ONLY WITH solely to harm BEST COUNTRY AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WHOLE STORY DR. RAFAEL CORREA DELGADO

Why can’t the people in SA see how successful a democracy is in the USA and stop wanting the government to be the supplier of everything we need. The system of people being able to improve their life by improving their self and move up the food chain and being rewarded accordingly is the way they should strive for. We are not perfect but we are good.

If USA has a successful democracy, we don’t want it. Millions living on poverty, millions unemployed, millions without a house that they were paying, millions of people dead for the bombings and invasions all over the world, millions living on fear of the police for the color of their skin, thousands kill every year for guns and crazy people, and we can keep going and going…if that is your “democracy”, you can keep it. Ecuador is a paradise compare with the USA. Correa after 10 years has more than 54% of support in the country, and his movement will participate in the next elections and will receive the vote of the big majority, and this “social movements” that they picture here won’t get the 2% of the votes, because THOSE ARE NOT SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. They don’t represent nobody, just a small group of “bosses” used to live at exspense of the workers and used to receive compensation from the government to keep then silenced.

This statement is the furthest thing from the truth. This past month I moved back to the United States after living in Ecuador for three years. The country is going through a recession and things are only going to get worse. Gentrification is occurring at an alarming rate in Quito which has caused rents to spike, pushing out the poor and middle class. Certain systems that we take for granted in the states (the post office) don’t work in Ecuador. The traffic in Quito is terrible as well as the pollution. Crime is a real problem and will only get worse as more and more people grasp the negative repercussions caused by a failing economy.

Due to a lack of industry, the majority of products in Ecuador are imported. Everything with the exception of petroleum and certain foods are expensive and taxes are increasing by the day.

Unemployment is high and jobs outside of the government sector are hard to find.

As beautiful as Ecuador is, it is certainly not a paradise. I will always go back and visit but feel very happy that I returned to the United States.

I have lived in Ecuador, continually for the last 11 years, and prior to that, I lived here 1981-1993. I have seen many changes during this time. There are some changes made by Mr. Correa, which have been very successful and extremely beneficial for the country and its citizens. The recent changes, those in the last year to year and a half, have really caused confusion to those of us who in the past supported the president. Jobs are really hard to find, the prices of the basics have increased, and it has become difficult for those of us who are ¨middle class¨ to make ends meet. The new labor law, could reduce pay to those who really can´t afford the reduction, and the unemployment insurance is taking money from the worker´s pocket to finance others. I think the article really told the truth and should be taken that way.

That is happening all over the world, the lack of jobs, the rise of prices, etc…to take advantage and single out the ecuadorian government is not fare, this article is just highlighting the negative and leaving aside all the progress and benefits created for the poor. This article is biased and it doesn’t reflect the true of what is going on in the world, or in Ecuador.

I have only lived in Ecuador for 2 years after visiting previously. I live closely with a large local family a member of which spent half his life in the USA so we discuss what has happened here, this President, what it was like before, and more. We personally witnessed a large demonstration against the proposed inheritance taxes and noted that on the outskirts of the demonstration was a large group of obviously affluent men in suits observing and we discussed the large probability that these men were paying the demonstrators as the suggested tax increase would not affect any of the demonstrators vs. the wealthy of the country who own lots of properties and have lots of money for their survivors. This President IS a people’s President and has made wondrous, positive changes from what I see and am advised. So have to agree with ones here saying the major opposition or ones behind negative press about this President are ones who do not want to pay their fair share of taxes. Also, the proposed hike in minimum wage benefits workers who usually take home less that $300 a month so again the owners of these Companies who live wealthy lives are opposed to having to pay their employees livable wages and also often make them work longer hours than the law states they should. So it seems that those opposed to this President are biased and not in favor of the average citizen here. I look forward to a long life in this beautiful Country and hope to one day become a citizen as well. Just hope this country continues to move forward as it did not prior to this President.

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